Heart of the Empire (The Broken Lands Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Atal Empire Map

  Heart of the Empire

  Book One

  The Broken Lands

  Carrie Summers

  Chapter One

  Savra

  A tide-swept beach in Cosmal Province

  A SHOVELFUL OF wet gravel sloshed into the sluice box. The frigid splash slapped my belly, drenching my tunic.

  “Hey!” I screeched.

  A laugh burst from my sister’s lips. Shovel in hand, Avill flinched as I flicked seawater at her face. On the beach behind her, a man picking over the tide line glanced up and smirked.

  “It was an accident!” she protested.

  “And I’m the Empress of Atal.”

  Instantly, Avill’s face stilled. She turned, splashing through knee-deep water that tugged at the rolled cuffs of her pants, and stabbed her shovel into the mud. The shovel came up streaming sand and water. In a smooth motion, she slid the load of sediment into the wooden trough between us. Not a single drop splashed.

  I pressed fingernails into my palm. I shouldn’t have mentioned anything about the Empire. Not today.

  “It will be okay, Avill,” I said. “I swear.”

  The sea’s chill sank into my muscles as I plunged hands into the trough. As I sifted the gravel, the current carried away smaller particles, leaving heavier pebbles rolling beneath my palms.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Avill said.

  “But you were thinking it.”

  “Okay, so maybe I was,” she snapped. “Because what if you’re wrong, Savra? What if they give you a Function somewhere far away and I never see you again?” Planting the shovel, she stuck her hands into the sluice box. Her brow furrowed as she plucked a stone from the muddy water. A plain, slate-colored pebble. She sighed and tossed it into the rip current that frothed a few paces behind me.

  I glanced at the foaming sea where the pebble had landed. The waters of the Stornisk Maelstrom were restless today—we needed to watch our footing. “Everyone from Numintown gets assigned to the sluices.”

  “I bet that’s what the girl from Agartown said, too.”

  Morning air filled my nose, pungent with the resiny scent of the brush that tangled Cosmal Peninsula’s hills. A surge in the shore current tugged harder at my cuffs, grains of sand pelting my calves. I shifted my feet wider, working my toes into the muck for stability. If the pull grew stronger, we’d have to stop working for the day. A few months ago, my friend’s mother had been swept into the Maelstrom. Lost forever. Now the family had to work double shifts until their quota got adjusted.

  “The thing in Agartown was years ago.”

  Avill stared at me, eyes wide. “But she vanished, Savra. Right after she got her Function writ. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

  I pressed my lips together. Avill collected stories of disappearances like a crow hoarding shiny objects. She turned them over and over, inspecting every facet in hopes of finally understanding why our father had left us.

  “You think I’m being stupid,” Avill said. “Fine. I’ll stop worrying if you’ll make me a promise.”

  I sighed. This conversation was starting to make me nervous, and I’d already spent the morning banishing my worries. “I don’t think you’re being stupid.”

  “Just promise me you’ll run away if they try to take you. Go fugitive. It will be easy to hide in the brush. I’ll bring you food and things.”

  As if I’d get farther than the road out of town. “I wouldn’t make a very good fugitive, you know.”

  “You could find Stormshard. They’d take you I bet.”

  I had to look away to hide my skeptical expression. Even if the rebel group was real, I couldn’t imagine what use they’d have for a seventeen-year-old sluice miner. I knew Avill secretly hoped that’s what had happened to our father. She wanted to believe that he’d joined the Sharders to protect our home. So I straightened my face and turned back to her.

  “All right, Avill,” I said. “If they give me a different Function, I’ll hide. I promise.”

  She swallowed as relief softened her expression. “I’ll try to stop talking about it then.”

  The water in the trough began to clear as the current washed away the cloudy sediment. I closed my eyes while running hands over the gravel. Beneath the ring finger of my right hand, I felt the telltale smoothness of a nugget. With a grin, I plucked it from the trough and held it up for Avill’s inspection. Black iron, globular and as dark as squid’s ink.

  “Nice find, girl,” said a woman working a sluice a few paces down the beach. Around ten Numintowners were mining the troughs this morning. Our settlement operated five boxes on this beach, plus another half-dozen closer to the peninsula’s tip. “That should fill your quota for a week.”

  Avill smiled, strands of honey-colored hair falling across her face. As usual, the expression was more desolate than genuine. Just twelve and still thin as a broomstick, Avill seemed older. It was as if her worries roosted on her shoulders, plucking the last breaths of childhood from her body.

  As I dropped the nugget into my collection pouch, the sand b
eneath my feet shifted. Voids opened beneath my heels as the slope suddenly dropped away. I squeaked and bent my knees, throwing my arms wide for balance.

  The ground heaved.

  “Get ashore,” a man yelled from the beach. “Quake!”

  Storms. The land jolted back and forth while the shore current muscled into my legs. Behind me, the heavy rip current of the Maelstrom sucked at the shore. With knuckles white and fingertips clawing into splintery wood, I pulled myself around the upstream end of the sluice box.

  “Avill!” I yelled as I reached for her. She was too light to fight the quake and the sea together. “Take my hand!”

  Between me and the beach, my sister shuffled with knees bent, leaning into the shore current. As she glanced back, a surge in the flow sent her staggering.

  Waves sloshed over the top of the wooden trough as the land tilted and juddered. I stumbled and went down, water pouring over my shoulders and pinning me against the sluice box.

  "No," I shouted as Avill turned against the gushing current and started back for me. Another lurch yanked two of the sluice box’s legs from the muck. The box overturned, mud flying. Seawater tunneled up my nose. I blinked and sputtered.

  Avill toppled beside me. Pawing the water, I found her warm back with my palm.

  I shoved. “Go,” I coughed as the ocean poured into my mouth. On hands and knees, I struggled for the shore. Saltwater blurred my vision. The bluff fringing the narrow strip of beach was a dark shadow that tilted like a seesaw. As I tried to orient on it, another thrust of the earth knocked me over. The sea closed over my head.

  Strong hands grabbed me under the armpits, dragging me like a sack of onions. Coughing, I paddled my feet. The freezing water retreated from my body, waves slapping as the sea released me.

  Finally, my toes dug into dry sand. My rescuer lowered me to the beach. As I rolled and blinked away the stinging water, the rocking of the earth slowed. The man who’d dragged me ashore dropped to a seat, breath rasping.

  “Avill! Save her!”

  A light hand fell on my shoulder. “Save yourself next time,” Avill said softly. “You worry too much about me.”

  I shoved myself upright. “Thank the skies,” I said, wrapping her in a hug. Her thin body shivered in my grasp, and I rubbed her back and arms to warm her. She pushed me aside, rolling her eyes in embarrassment.

  “Your sister’s right, you know,” my rescuer said. I met his eyes. Denill was a neighbor. He usually worked alone, picking the tide line for Maelstrom-metals and relics rather than mining the sluices. “Avill was nearly ashore when you fell.”

  I sighed. Fair enough.

  Wet hair clung to my face. I swiped it away and looked out to sea. Three of the sluice boxes had overturned, but it looked like everyone had made it onto the beach. No damage done, but the earthquakes had been getting worse lately. Every time the ground shook, Cosmal Peninsula tilted further into the sea. The Sinking Province, as some called it, slid down the Maelstrom’s throat year by year. Denill’s home already slanted too steeply—soon we’d have to help him prop up the downhill corners.

  As I climbed to my feet, a shout came from the path leading to town. I leaned around Avill and squinted. Someone was running along the trail, jumping over branches where low brush leaned onto the path.

  When the newcomer, a boy of about ten, burst onto the beach, he planted hands on his hips. I recognized him now. He’d come with the registrar’s party, the group sent to assign official Functions to Numintowners who’d come of age.

  “Savra Panmi?” he called.

  My heart thudded hard against my ribs. “Yes? That’s me.”

  Despite his small size, he managed to look down his nose at me. Atal-born, no doubt. To him, my provincial—Prov—birth made me either a pest or a slave depending on his needs.

  “There’s been a change of schedule. You’re summoned to the town hall to receive your Function assignment.”

  I stood, blinking. No matter how brave I’d acted for Avill, I couldn’t stop my fears from rushing back. I was about to learn what I’d be doing for the rest of my life. Even if I already worked the sluices most days, my Function assignment would make it official.

  “Now?” I said stupidly. “Why?”

  “As if a Prov has the right to ask questions.” He rolled his eyes. “Yes, now. And I suggest you hurry.”

  Chapter Two

  Kostan

  Steelhold, high above the imperial capital, Jaliss

  WHEN THE BOTTOM of the door rasped over the thick wool carpet, I continued to stare out the window. Beyond the iron bars protecting my receiving chamber from would-be thieves or assassins—or were the bars to keep me in?—the palace courtyard bustled. Servants hurried through the morning sunshine, carrying baskets and stacks of laundry, and in the center of the open square, liquid black-iron sand flowed over the spouts and cornices of the fountain. The same view as always. But I still enjoyed the fresh air and the taste of sun on my face.

  In the hallway outside my receiving chamber, one of my guardians cleared his throat.

  “Scion Kostan,” the man said. “Your attention is required.”

  Sighing, I gave a last glance at the jagged cliffs beyond the chasm, and farther, the snowy crest of the Icethorns. Young men like me were not granted the leisure of enjoying the morning. I turned to face my duty.

  The girl shuffled in as I crossed the room to my polished cherrywood chair. She hunched as if she could hide in plain sight, become as invisible to me as I was to her. As soon as the door shut behind her, hiding my expression from the guardians, I grimaced.

  “Your binding, sire,” she said.

  I nodded then went red with shame over the lapse. The girl couldn’t see the gesture; her eyes had been removed before she was admitted into service of the imperial Scions. That I could forget her suffering, even for an instant, spoke to the person I’d become. Hardly better than the elite-class parents who’d spawned me.

  I wished I could ask her not to call me “sire,” but I knew it was hopeless. And as for getting her to use Kostan, impossible. The only people who used my given name were the other Scions. Regardless, I reached for her forearm as she approached, touched her gently to help her find my chair. She winced at the contact, her cheek twitching under the silk mask that covered the upper half of her face. I didn’t blame her.

  “I’m sorry to startle you,” I said softly.

  She didn’t reply, only pressed her lips together in a tight line.

  As the girl lowered herself to her knees, hands groping for my lower left leg and foot, I shifted on the cushioned chair to make it easier for her. She laid a hand on the gold cuff that encircled my ankle and fished out a small key from within the folds of her wrap. My guardians would have given her the key just before she entered my receiving chamber, and they’d demand its return the moment she passed from the room. For now, she crabbed sensitive fingers along the rim of the cuff until she found the keyhole.

  I noticed that her hands trembled. I clenched my fists, wishing I could convince her I meant her no harm. She was new to the palace—I was sure of it. Though the girls who changed my dressings wore identical silk wraps and masks over their eyes and noses, I did my best to learn their faces. By recognizing them as individuals, I did nothing to return their sight. But I had no other way to honor them.

  The cuff fell away, clanking to the floor and releasing the top edge of the linen bandage that covered my foot. Despite myself, I breathed a sigh of pleasure as the girl unwound the strips of cloth, allowing the cool air onto my skin. I wore the cuff and dressing at all times. To sleep. When walking through the palace courtyards. While bathing. Though fresh dressings were soaked in light perfume and the servant girls dusted my skin with talcum powder before rewrapping my foot, after the three days between changes, the strips of fabric always stank. And where they covered the mark on the sole of my foot, a wound which wouldn’t heal for two more years, blood crusted the clo
th.

  The girl’s lip twitched at the smell, but she kept her composure. I didn’t apologize; if the guardians overheard, they would punish her for prompting the act. Instead, I fought the rush of shame. I should have become used to this by now, having worn the cuff and dressing since the occasion of my branding on my second birthday. But the older I got, the more humiliating the situation.

  It was nothing compared to what the girls endured, of course. Sometimes, I fantasized that if I ascended the throne, blindfolds would replace the cruel custom of removing the servants’ eyes. But for that to happen, I’d have to be declared worthier than the other Scions. Unlikely, at best. Among other things, my secret wish to abolish the custom of blinding the girls surely made me unsuitable.

  “The basin is here,” I said as the girl patted the air, searching for the low table and the rosewater-filled bowl atop it. I nudged her hand toward the bronze basin, ignoring her renewed shock at my touch. Bowing her head, she placed the bowl on the floor then groped for my leg and lowered my foot into the lukewarm water.

  Her fingers were gentle on my skin, and I hated myself for the shiver that traveled my spine. I’d had passing attractions to young women, especially Vaness, one of the other Scions. With Vaness, it had gone farther, a few kisses that had ended when we finally wised up to the danger. At nineteen, I couldn’t control my body’s desires. But I would never take advantage of a servant, especially one of the poor girls blinded by the guardians. In any case, I had no plans for a lasting relationship. At least not until Ascension. If taking the throne were—somehow, impossibly—my fate, I refused to doom anyone to a life as the Emperor’s wife-consort.

  After washing my foot, the girl cupped the back of my heel and lifted it from the basin. With a cloth of the softest linen, she patted my skin dry. Where the fibers brushed my wound, tingles spread up my leg—the brand no longer hurt unless it became infected, a rare occurrence due to these regular cleansings. I closed my eyes, imagining I could sense the shape of the wound. Due to the spell worked into my flesh by the gold iron used for my branding, the lines burned into my foot should have changed shape in the years since. On the occasion of the Ascension—the morning of our twenty-first birthday—all thirteen Scions would have our cuffs removed and our feet examined. Our scars would determine who rose to the throne, leaving the remaining twelve to serve as imperial ministers during the new Emperor's reign.